“A Blind Man Shall Lead Them”
Editor and writer: Stan Lee Art: Jack Kirby (pencils), Frank Giacoia (inks)
Scholars of the comic Fantastic Four mark 1965 as a watershed year in the series’ history. Up to that year, the adventures of the title’s stars were episodic. Oh, there were a couple of minor sub-plot threads that popped up from time to time, such as Reed Richards’ efforts to restore Ben Grimm to normal, but essentially, each story was self-contained.
Then, in 1965, Stan Lee shifted gears, and the magazine went from being a series to a serial. Instead of ending on page twenty, the events of one issue blended with those of the next. Often a story would conclude in the middle of an issue, and the next tale would immediately pick up from threads previously laid down. Readers were swept along by the continuous narrative, given no more time to pause than the characters of the Fantastic Four themselves were.
The first of these serials began with Fantastic Four # 38 (May, 1965), and it would run for twelve more issues before the next stand-alone story appeared in F.F. # 51 (Jun., 1966).
Most F.F. mavens and comics fans, in general, consider the last three issues of that run, # 48-50---the Galactus trilogy---to be its high-water mark. It’s even got its own entry in Wikipedia, and deservedly so, for its grim end-of-the-world scenario and metaphysical undertones. But a more palpable edge-of-your-seat drama appeared at the beginning of the run, a tale that quickly receded in readers' memories once the narrative introduced the Inhumans and, then, Galactus.
I’m talking about the adventure in which a powerless Fantastic Four have to recapture their own headquarters from Doctor Doom!
The splash page of “A Blind Man Shall Lead Them” follows the aftermath of Fantastic Four # 38, in which the super-heroes squared off against the Frightful Four on an atoll in the South Pacific. The story was notable in its own right in that the villains won that one. They escaped while Reed, Ben, and the others were caught in the explosion of the Wizard’s deadly Q-bomb.
An American submarine, USS Sea Wolf, spots the four figures floating in the ocean, and a rescue party is dispatched. It’s been a full day since the F.F.’s defeat; exhaustion and exposure to the elements have almost claimed their lives. They’re placed in the boat’s sick bay, under the care of the medical officer. Meanwhile, the word spreads through the excited crew that, on board, they have Mister Fantastic, the Human Torch, the Invisible Girl, and . . . some normal-looking guy they never heard of.
After bed rest and a hearty breakfast, the F.F. have regained their strength. Their minds clear again, they’re forced to confront the cold fact that’s been staring the readers in the face for three pages, now.
The Fantastic Four no longer possess their super-powers!
When they get back to Manhattan, medical tests---and Ben Grimm’s mirror—confirm what they already know: their powers are gone, due to some unexpected effect of the Q-bomb radiation. Reed Richards drops the other shoe when he informs his teammates that there’s no way to restore them to their super-powered selves. That news brings more than just the uncomfortable realisation that they’re going to have to go out and get real jobs, now. They’ll be sitting ducks for any of their old enemies, if the word leaks out.
But, Reed, of course, has a plan.
He spends several feverish days in his lab, attempting to re-create artificially what the Q-bomb took away from them. For Sue, it’s an “electro-vibra” harness which uses vibrating electronic impulses to duplicate her former invisibility power. Johnny wraps himself in a full-body suit equipped with hundreds of tiny fire-jets to replace his lost power to flame on, while Reed himself simulates his stretching ability with mechanical limb-extenders for his arms and legs.
The best Richards can do for Ben is provide him with a lifelike robot of the Thing, which he can manipulate by a hand-held control device.
The alpha-tests do not go well. Ben and Sue and Johnny don’t adapt as well to the mechanical devices as they did their natural super-powers. Especially Ben, who cannot get the hang of performing by “remote control”. An exasperated Reed reminds them of how helpless they would be, if any of their old foes should attack. He’s in full hard-ass mode here, refusing to let the others take a break and criticising their slow learning curve.
“We’re not playing games now!” he barks. “Keep practicing until you get it!”
His grumbling teammates probably would show more urgency if, at that moment, they could see four thousand miles across the ocean and into the throne room of an imperial castle in the tiny Bavarian nation of---Latveria, where Doctor Doom rules with a ruthless hand.
For those of you who have been living under a rock for the last half-century or so, Dr. Doom is the Fantastic Four’s deadliest foe. Or, at least, he was, until their last confrontation in Fantastic Four Annual # 2 (1964), when a Reed-induced hallucination tricked Doom into believing that he had defeated the F.F.
Doom is jolted out of his fool’s paradise when the evening’s entertainment, a stage magician, demonstrates his abilities at mesmerism. The veil lifts from Doom’s brain, and he realises that he was deceived. Pausing only a moment to---in true “killing the messenger” fashion---cuff the magician with the back of his iron-gloved hand, the armour-plated despot heads down to the castle’s garage and takes off in a “unique gyroscopic aircraft” of his own design. Next stop: New York City!
The following morning finds the F.F. undertaking another practise session, this time in a large warehouse several blocks away from the Baxter Building. Our Heroes haven’t gotten any better at mastering their artificial powers, which is probably what prompts Reed into summoning their lawyer, Matt Murdock. When the blind attorney arrives, the leader of the F.F. gives him instructions on the final dispositions of their effects. Murdock’s four remaining, hyper-amplified senses tell him that something is seriously wrong with his clients, but Reed clams up on the matter.
It becomes hard to deny, though, when an explosion suddenly erupts in the middle of the group! The blast isn’t enough to kill, but it tosses the F.F. and Murdock about like rag dolls. There’s just enough time to shove the sightless attorney out the door before the attack is pressed by a scattershot of stun blasts.
The first casualty is the Thing robot when it is crushed by a collapsing wall, holding it up just long enough for the four heroes to find cover.
Meanwhile, in an alley outside, Matt Murdock strips off his Brooks Brothers suit to become---Daredevil, the Man Without Fear!
It’s here, at this point, when the attack that Reed dreaded has begun, the story shifts gears, from “idle” to “drive”, and what a ride it turns out to be.
Daredevil dashes back into the besieged warehouse. The fusillade of energy bursts have taken out most of the lights and the Fantastic Four are helpless targets, ducking in the blind. Unhampered by the darkness, DD leads the foursome out of building, into the broad daylight.
Not that it brings any real sense of relief, for it enables the F.F. to get a look at the roof of the Baxter Building sitting among the city skyline---and the gyroscopic aircraft plopped down on top of it.
The pieces fall into place. Their attacker landed atop the skyscraper and infiltrated their headquarters, somehow avoiding all of the sophisticated alarms and protective devices. And now, he’s turning the Fantastic Four’s own weaponry and equipment against them. There’s only one man with the genius and technological expertise to circumvent Reed Richards’ safeguards---Doctor Doom!
The armoured villain erases any doubt by broadcasting a hologram over Manhattan---“THE FANTASTIC FOUR SHALL NOW DIE . . . BY THE HAND OF . . . DOCTOR DOOM!”---giving the tourists something to talk about when they get home.
Able to spy on his quarries’ every move, thanks to Reed’s own TV radar-tracker, Doom initiates the next stage of his murderous assault. Under the remote control of steel-gauntleted fingers, the Fantasti-Car launches from the Baxter Building. Swooping low, it streaks down the narrow avenue toward the helpless F.F.
But Daredevil isn’t helpless. His radar sense tracks the hurling craft faster than human sight could. When the ship separates into its component sections---the better to smoosh F.F.ers with---the sightless adventurer pushes them all to safety.
Next up on Doom’s list of death-dealing devices: Reed’s air-displacing vortex machine. The pull of a lever sends a concentrated whirlwind with the force of a dozen tornadoes into the building in which Our Heroes have taken refuge. In seconds, the structure is torn to brick and rubble. Once again, Daredevil is able to lead the F.F. to safety in a situation where sight is useless.
Tired of being herded, like panicky sheep, from one murder attempt to another, Reed gives the order to split up and each of them make for the Baxter Building from a different direction. They scatter before Doom can launch his next wave. The Man Without Fear sticks to the heels of Reed Richards.
“Daredevil isn’t deserting you now!”
Fortunately for Ben and Sue and Johnny, Doom focuses his efforts on the erstwhile Mr. Fantastic. The villain piles it on, sending more death and destruction at Reed and Daredevil. Another pavement-shattering vortex dogs their heels. A winged drone blasts at them with a lethal force beam. Richards’ resourcefulness and DD’s enhanced senses keep them alive. Just barely.
If they could read their adversary’s mind, the outlook would get even bleaker, for another factor which has kept the Fantastic Four alive is about to be lost. Throughout his assault, Dr. Doom has held back, in anticipation of his targets launching a super-powered counter-attack. Yet, to Doom’s bafflement, no such retaliation has come. He’s even more puzzled that the crimson-clad hero with them seems to be taking the lead.
Suddenly, the truth pierces his suspicions and cautiousness: the Fantastic Four no longer have super-powers!
Things are about to get much deadlier for the F.F.-plus-one.
On the street below, the Man Without Fear justifies his sobriquet with a tactical decision.
“You’ll have a better chance to make it to your H.Q. if I make Doom concentrate on me!” he tells Reed. “So go to it, while I draw his fire!”
Before Richards can protest, Daredevil vaults to the nearest rooftop, then races across a power line directly toward the Baxter Building. Doom responds by firing an explosive shell his way. The sightless hero barely dodges the shower of jagged fragments.
“If we survive this battle,” thinks Reed, “I’ll owe that man a debt that can never be repaid.”
Meanwhile, approaching the looming Baxter Building from different directions, the other three members of the Fantastic Four are also wondering if, without their powers, they’ll survive the day.
* * * * *
“A Blind Man Shall Lead Them” and its second half, “The Battle of the Baxter Building”, was what they call a concept story. Somebody gets a Neat Idea, and the plot is built around it. In this case, Stan Lee probably thought “Wouldn’t it be thrilling to see the Fantastic Four fight their greatest foe without their super-powers?”
Lee sets up the premise effectively, drawing on techniques used in other media. First, he borrows from the old movie-serial cliffhangers by ending the previous issue’s story up in the air, with no indication of the Fantastic Four’s fate. Fantastic Four # 39 begins by showing us that the F.F. did survive the Q-bomb explosion.
From there, Stan copied a technique from television. The first three pages of “A Blind Man Shall Lead Them” come across like the pre-credits teaser of a television episode. We witness the F.F. being rescued at sea, but nothing is stated outright about their conditions. We see that Ben Grimm has reverted to his human form; for all we know, that has been the only lasting effect of the Q-bomb.
The strange moroseness of Reed and Sue and Johnny is not explained until the last panel on page three, when they admit flat out that they’ve all lost their powers. (Cut to opening credits.)
At this point, the reader is hooked, but good.
It’s interesting to note the abject dismay felt by the Fantastic Four over no longer being super-human. They can’t even state the fact of it for over a day. That shows more than just having become used to them. In three and a half years (probably less time, within the fictional time-line of the series), their powers have become part of what they are---even for Ben Grimm. The loss of their super-powers is like what losing an arm or a leg would be to us normal folk.
“When we first got our powers a few years ago, we hated them,” says Ben. “And now---we feel naked and helpless without them!”
Naturally, it’s Reed Richards who quickly sees the even darker side of it---the fact that they are now vulnerable to any old foe who’s got revenge on his mind. And with this realisation, Stan Lee gives us a look at an aspect of Reed’s personality that was largely ignored after the Silver Age. Later writers highlighted Mr. Fantastic’s incredible intellect. He was often shown to be so wrapped up in his scientific studies that he would lose track of time or other engagements, implying that he was fully engaged by his genius.
To Lee, though, this was the mark of a highly disciplined personality, a man who set priorities and adhered to them. This is evident in the way Reed drives his teammates to master the devices he has created to imitate their powers. He knows that an attack by an enemy is the most imminent threat to their survival, and there’s no time to let Ben and Sue and Johnny work through their feelings of despair.
We witness Reed’s intense self-discipline again after Dr. Doom attacks them at the warehouse. While Ben, Johnny, and Sue do little more than react, scampering from every threat, it doesn’t take long for Reed to start planning, figuring out the best steps to keep them alive. This isn’t a function of his brilliant intellect, nor are they the ideas of a master strategist. The tactics that Reed directs are simple---they could have just as easily come from Ben or Johnny, or even Sue. But only Reed was disciplined enough to think of them under pressure.
I always enjoyed Fantastic Four stories which saw Ben Grimm revert to his human self, the same way I particularly liked the rare flashback episode of Ironside which saw Chief Ironside getting around on two legs, before the bullet that crippled him. That’s because I knew it wouldn’t last. Inevitably, the status quo would reëxert itself and Ironside would be back in the wheelchair---and Ben would be orange and rocky, again.
As deft as Stan Lee was in recognising the human emotions in a situation, I always thought his handling of the infrequent scenes in which the Thing became human again were underwhelming. Yes we saw, especially in the early days, Ben’s joy and relief at being a normal man, again. But Lee never explored the more prosaic feelings which would go along with such things. Even the routine sensations and functions of day-to-day life---things like using a knife and fork, dialing a telephone number, taking a shower---had to be different for Ben while stuck in the Thing’s body.
On those occasions when he returned to normal, doing all those things the human way would have felt new, again. It would have been keen insight on Stan’s part if we had seen something like Ben marveling at feeling the wind blowing through his hair, again.
Next time out, we’ll take a look at the second half as the Not-So-Fantastic Four run a deadly thirty-five-story gauntlet.
Replies
I believe that Wally Wood inked all the Daredevil figures.
And this was the third time the FF needed another Marvel hero to beat Doctor Doom: Sub-Mariner in #6, Ant-Man in #16 and now Daredevil.
Four times if you count Spidey in Amazing Spider-Man #5.
This two-parter is one of my very favorite FF stories, and one of Daredevil's finest Silver Age outings. Only two months earlier he had adopted his red costume and shown his bravery against Sub-Mariner.
The Fantastic Four hosted practically all of Marvel's Silver Age heroes as guest stars either to keep them in the public eye or to promote their titles. Since Daredevil was relatively new, he got the spotlight though it wasn't his first guest shot. That was Amazing Spider-Man #16 while he was in his original outfit.
Couldn't agree more about 1965 being a great year for the FF. I'm a big fan of the Frightful Four story line that threaded in and out during this period. The only complaint I have is with Vinnie Colletta coming on board as inker during this run. Colletta was fine over on Thor but it would have been nice if Frank Giacoia could have stayed on through out.
This was an excellent story indeed. Good point about Reed's cool head in a crisis--I agree with you, it's something later writers (and most adaptations) forget in favor of current stereotypes of geniuses.
Of course, in FF #6, Subby initially teamed up with Dr. Doom against the FF, only helping the FF against Doom after the nasty Latverian betrayed him. In the first couple of years of FF stories, Dr. D. was in danger of being seriously overused, although they made up for that with the classic FF Annual #2, not only revealing that Dr. Doom is an actual despot, ruler of his own little kingdom, but also showing us other aspects of his background and personality that made him far more appealing as a villain. And during the last five and a half years of the Lee/Kirby run they used him far more sparingly and in much better stories, starting with this great two-parter. I think Ditko had started the trend in serial stories, initially in the revised Hulk series in Tales to Astonish in 1964, and then in Dr. Strange, and Lee must have liked it because it seems starting in 1965, not only the FF but nearly every other Marvel series went into series mode, excluding the soon to be cancelled Human Torch and Giant-Man & the Wasp, but including their replacements, S.H.IE.L.D & Namor's new series. Made for more exciting stories, IMO.
Philip Portelli said:
Good catch pointing out the Hulk was a serial in TTA from the start of his feature in #60. Lee and Kirby also made Thor a serial beginning with JIM 114, "The Trial of the Gods". That's 5 months after TTA 60 and predates FF 38 by 2 months.
I also want to say I very much enjoyed this Deck Log Entry, Commander!
John Dunbar (the mod of maple) said:
My pleasure! I'm glad you did. And I hope you enjoy Part Two, which is hovering around somewhere at the bottom of this page, as much.